UK Police: 3 Women Held Captive for 30 Years

LONDON (AP) — Three women have been freed after spending 30 years held captive in a south London home, including one woman believed to have spent her entire life in domestic slavery, police announced Thursday.

London’s Metropolitan Police spoke about the rescues after two people — a man and a woman, both 67 — were arrested early Thursday on suspicion of forced labor and domestic servitude.

The arrests came as part of a slavery investigation launched after one of the captives contacted a charity in October to say she was being held against her will along with two others. The charity went to the police, the force said.

Those freed on Oct. 25 are a 69-year-old Malaysian woman, a 57-year-old Irish woman and a 30-year-old British woman, police said.

Kevin Hyland, head of the Metropolitan Police’s human trafficking unit, said the women are “highly traumatized” having had “no real exposure to the outside world” for the past 30 years.

“Trying to find out exactly what has happened over three decades will understandably take some time,” he said.

Police at Scotland Yard initially said they did not believe any of the victims were related. Later, however, they appeared to backtrack, saying the relationship between the three women is part of the ongoing investigation and they will not speculate on it.

The force also said there is no evidence to suggest anything of a sexual nature — but cautioned that the investigation is still not finished. Police would not speculate on any possible motivation, name the suspects’ nationalities or say if the suspects were a couple.

The revelations raised numerous questions — all still unanswered — about how the women’s ordeal began and why it endured for so long. What brought them to London? What freedoms — if any — did they have? What restrictions and conditions were they were subject to? Did neighbors ever see them, did they ever try to escape?

The women — whose names have not been released — are now safe at an undisclosed location in Britain and have been working with severe trauma experts since their rescue, Hyland said.

It is not known how the women ended up in the house — especially the 30-year-old, who would have had to either been born in the home in the Borough of Lambeth or enter it as an infant, given the police timeline. She appears to have been held in domestic servitude for her entire life, Scotland Yard said.

Hyland said police were contacted in October by Freedom Charity, who told them it had received a call from a woman who said she had been held against her will in London for more than 30 years.

The Irish woman called Freedom Charity from what appears to be an “ordinary house in an ordinary street,” said Aneeta Prem, founder of the charity that promotes awareness of child abuse, forced marriages and honor killings.

Police said the Irish woman “found the courage to call” the charity after seeing a documentary on the BBC about forced marriages. What followed were secret, “in-depth” conversations with the women, Prem told Sky News.